u/notablecacti

I just don't know what to do at this point.

I have very complex feelings about sex and relationships, mainly informed by a lot of unhappy experiences and heartbreak in the past, and I just want to spend my time not having to think about it.

The problem is, I'm a trans woman, and most of my immediate queer community is hypersexual. My history with sex is *maybe* once every few months, but not having sex twice a week with random people off Grindr or whatever seems to drive my queer friends crazy, and so they make sex their number one priority in day to day life. Being so psychologically dependent on sexual gratification is a completely alien mindset to me.

This wouldn't be a problem to me if I didn't have to hear about their sex lives. You do you. But I feel that when I'm in a group conversation with them, the conversation often and quickly turns to sex. Who you're having sex with, trash-talking people who are bad or inexperienced at sex, etc. And sex or relationship topics have already become a trigger for me due to unhappy past relationships and heartbreak, but I'm too afraid to assert that boundary because it would make me seem prude or "sex negative" (the cardinal sin in queer polyamorous culture).

Conversely, when I try to talk about my own interests with my queer friends, such as art or plants or movies or stuff, I struggle to hold their attention--they often miss things I say because they're texting on their phones (likely trying to find someone to hookup with). I just feel like an outsider.

This queer alienation has gotten bad for me and made me increasingly depressed. Even though I'm trans, I don't feel "queer enough" to fit in, and I feel like I can't truly relate to or connect with people on a deep emotional level without trying to fake being a hypersexual kinkster. It's even triggered crises for me in the past.

And I'm not sure what to do. The safe bet would be to just entirely focus on my social life on the arts and writing communities I'm currently involved in, because when I'm with them I don't often hear extended conversations about sex that I don't feel like I have anything to contribute to that make me feel like some sort of inferior, non-human thing; these aren't necessarily queer, though, so I'm worried that would make me a traitor or a "pick me" or something? I'm just not sure.

And I do love my queer friends. They are fun to party with and stuff, and I don't want to cut them out of my lives. But I just know sex is a far more important priority for them in their lives than me, which is a source of trauma and bad feelings. I just want to write my fantasy and horror stories and make art, and relate to other human beings on spiritual, artistic, emotional, and intellectual levels--not on a biological level.

I feel weird and isolated because the only thing most people I know want to talk about most of the time is sex. Idk if I'm simply bitter about most of my sexual relationships being traumatizing to me in some form and wanting to avoid the subject entirely because of that, but it's exhausting not being able to hold someone's attention in a conversation unless it's about something horny. Nobody cares about pursuing self-improvement or more abstract goals, or understanding the universe in a deeper sense; they just care about what hole they're going to fill next, or ritually abusing one other at worst. I just want people in my age group to age out of their bodies and not feel horny anymore because I feel I *mentally* aged faster than everyone else around me.